

330 The Aborigines of Brazil. 



is well known, most tribes of New Spain knew how to prepare 

 from it a paste like our chocolate, and used their beans in 

 place of coins, the Indians of the Amazon stream, along which 

 the tree is very abundant, used only to make a fermented 

 drink from the sweetish-sourish juice which the shell of the 

 seed contains. This would seem to shew that at the period 

 of our arrival there was no intercourse between them. In 

 like manner, (if I may believe the reports I received) the 

 Avogato Pear, Persea Gratissima, Gartner, which grows 

 wild throughout a great portion of the lower Amazon basin, 

 was there scarcely known to the inhabitants, while it has been 

 long known to the Indians, and eaten by them and the 

 colonists throughout a great part of America, as a great deli- 

 cacy. It is called in the Haiti tongue Ahacaca, in Peru Palta, 

 and among the Azteks Quauhitl. On the whole many things 

 seem to show, that for many centuries there has been exceed- 

 ingly little intercourse between the hordes of Brazil and the 

 more civilized races of the New World. Perhaps the only visi- 

 ble signs that we can see of a former connection are those 

 artificially cut specimens of the Amazon stone, which are 

 found among the most different tribes of Brazil. If their inter- 

 course had not been interrupted, we should certainly have 

 found among the Brazilians many useful plants, which they do 

 not possess, or at least do not know the properties of. Such 

 is the Agave Americana, L. It is found indeed in many places 

 along the sea coast, but no where in the interior. The Brazi- 

 lian savage does not know the art of preparing the fermented 

 drink Pulque from it, and I do not know that it is designated 

 by any name except its Carib one. In New Spain the A. Ame- 

 ricana is commonly called Mayuey, a Haiti word, which pro- 

 bably formerly designated the Fourcroya Cubenis. The latter 

 is a native of warmer districts than the former, whose original 

 habitat is to be sought in New Spain or in some of the eleva- 

 ted plains of Central America. Another indication of the little 

 intercourse between these tribes, is the fact that the varieties 



